Channel 4 has lifted the lid on the cities that may benefit from its 4 All scheme to move London jobs to the UK regions.

Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Greater Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and the West Midlands are the areas shortlisted to be the the broadcaster's new 'National HQ' outside London.

Belfast, Brighton, Newcastle-Gateshead, Nottingham, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent meanwhile will battle it to be the home of one of two smaller creative hubs, but will face competition from the cities that miss out to be the HQ.

Some 300 of Channel 4's 800 staff will be located in the new regional offices.

The process was launched in March 2018 and now enters its second stage where a panel will visit each city to judge them on their merits before final locations are selected October 2018.

Jonathan Allan, chief commercial officer Channel 4, said: “We’ve been incredibly impressed both by the number of pitches we received and by the high quality of the submissions – which has underlined the huge amount of creativity, innovation and talent right across the UK.

“However we have to move to a shortlist phase and, after careful consideration by the Channel 4 Executive team, we’ve selected 13 cities that are best able to meet our vision for our new hubs in the Nations and Regions. We look forward to visiting all those on the shortlist as part of our second phase, but we will also be continuing to work with all cities and regions as part of our strategy to increase investment and support creative businesses, jobs and growth across the UK.”

The government issued the broadcaster a deadline to relocate some staff outside of London. As a result, it decided to increase its nations and regions content spend from its current quota of 35% to a new voluntary target of 50% by 2023.